The encounter of the Mir Russian Premier League 4th round that was held at VTB Arena, ended in a 2:0 win for the hosts.
Due to the absence of two experienced right-backs Eli Dasa and Sergey Parshivlyuk, 19-year-old Stanislav Bessmertnyi got the chance to start the RPL match. Nicolas Ngamaleu, Konstantin Tyukavin and Vyacheslav Grulev formed the attacking trio, which was traditionally supported by Fedor Smolov.
The beginning of the match was marked by a duel of players wearing number 20 on their jerseys. Firstly, Artur Galoyan tested Dynamo goalkeeper with a powerful strike – Anton Shunin, who was making his 350th appearance, palmed the ball away. Dynamo responded with their swift attack, but Vyacheslav Grulev missed the target from outside the penalty box.
The teams ran forward actively as if there were no exhausting Cup matches during the midweek, in which both sides met success. Ngamaleu was a real danger for the visitors trying to interplay with teammates of finish the attacks himself. Grulev was also on fire! Slava opened up for Daniil Fomin's cross, but headed the ball over the crossbar.
The visitors blocked the majority of Dynamo shots and ran away into dangerous counterattacks. In one of them, the captain of the Baltic side Yan Kazayev got the pass 20 meters from the goal and curled the ball into the right corner – Shunin jumped nicely to neutralize the threat. A similar chance was created by the white-blue team – Yevgeny Latyshonok demonstrated his skills by denying Ngamaleu's curling effort.
In the second half Dynamo looked for new chances and did it regularly. Ngamaleu assisted on Tyukavin, who fell out one–on-one with the goalkeeper. Latyshonok shined again and saved the team. However the pressure of the hosts became fatal for Baltika. Dmitry Skopintsev made a raid down the left wing and crossed into the centre of the penalty box. The defenders looked confused while Bessmertnyi who had joined the attack scored his first goal for Dynamo first team!
There was also another chance for Tyukavin, who struck after a clever pass by Smolov, but Latyshonok pulled the ball out from under the crossbar. Closer to the middle of the half, Marcel Licka made a triple substitution – Denis Makarov, Yaroslav Gladyshev and Saba Sazonov came to the pitch.
The Kaliningrad side tried to come back, but it could equalize only after any of mistakes made by the hosts: Sazonov unsuccessfully headed the ball towards the penalty area, Tamerlan Musayev was the first on rebound, but Shunin got close to him timely and did not let the centre-forward put his name on the scoresheet.
In the 75th minute, Skopintsev interplayed well with Ngamaleu and Makarov converted his teammates' efforts with the sniper's shot. In the remaining time, the White-Blues played calmly and earned the third consecutive win which allowed Shunin to register the hundredth clean sheet in the RPL.
Dynamo climbed to the fifth spot having 7 points. In the next match Marcel Licka's men will face CSKA at VTB Arena on Saturday, August 19.